Yesterday I began to discuss the one Christian forger who got caught red handed who then tried to get off the hook. Well, bend over backwards to make himself look innocent. We’ve been seeing a lot of that these days. It goes way back. Humans are humans.
Here is my assessment of the situation, highlighting my obscure little academic point: in the ancient world, readers simply did not like or approve of this kind of behavior, lying about who you as an author really were (they called these kinds of books, by the way “Pseudoi” — Greek for “Lies”). On the contrary, they routinely condemned it. That should be borne in mind when thinking of other instances of the phenomenon, such as those found in far more familiar books from the early Christian tradition. (And this is the point the riles a number of my scholar friends, who just can’t *believe* ancient authors would do something deceitful — especially if their books were later included in the New Testament!).
At the end of the previous post I pointed out that when Salvian was detected as having forged a letter in the name of Paul’s companion Timothy, he argued
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I’ve mentioned before that the plural of pseudos is pseude or pseudea. It’s third not second declension. Same with skeuos. When I last mentioned this you suggested, thinking I suppose of pus, that pseudea are pimples, whereas the Ancient Greek for those afflictions of adolescence was ionthoi – that is a genuine second declension word.
The word and the idea being so important there should be some thought of its usage in earlier literature, such as Homer’s magnificent, thunderous line ‘eiske pseudea polla legon etymoisin homoia’, where Odysseus, poet as well as hero, uses convincing lies to his nearest and dearest – for their good, of course
Timothy, least of the servants of precision, to Bart Ehrman: greetings.
Actually, this is Tjalling, trying to understand what happened in the Salvian case.
Salvian puts “Timothy” at the head of a fifth-century work addressed to the Church throughout the world. If readers were meant to identify “Timothy” with Paul’s companion, wouldn’t a question be: where did this unknown writing suddenly come from?
Salonius asks why “Timothy” is attached and warns that without explanation the work might be regarded as apocryphal.
Salvian then says in §2 that the books are not by the apostle Timothy, and in §§17-18 that he worried the name change might amount to a mendacium, a lie. I could not find the statement in §2 quoted in your account.
What does “caught red-handed” mean here?
1. What did Salonius catch Salvian doing? Was Salvian already circulating the work, intending readers to believe that Paul’s Timothy had written it?
2. If so, what is the evidence for that earlier stage before Salvian supplied his explanation?
Could Salonius instead have been an early reader who spotted the risk and asked for clarification? That would still show that names mattered and that Salvian himself took a real risk.
1. Yes, the work was circulated and Salonius recognized it was forged by Salvian.
2. What the account itself says.
3. Yes, Salonius was an early reader; he appears to have confronted/accused Salvian directly.
Interesting stuff. So-called “pagan” ancient Greek literature includes many epistles, speeches, philosophical dialogues, etc. put out to consumers under the purported authorship of a famous figure but actually forged. Ancient literary critics expended a lot of energy on trying to sift out authentic works from works forged and attributed to a known personage.
Did Salvian circulate his forgery as a translation of an original epistle supposed to have been written in Greek?
Evidently .disabledupes{b710f6b09577a15c8ae243f986b2a5c7}disabledupes
I agree with you that writing a document while falsely claiming to be Peter or Paul is an act of deception. When I consider the authors’ possible motives, it seems plausible that they were trying to advance their own doctrinal views or their preferred model of church organization—for example, by excluding women from leadership.
Ultimately, this seems essentially the same as what we still see today: people using religion to increase their own power. When that happens, religion is reduced to a political tool and becomes corrupted.
I find it shameful that such writings are included in the Bible.